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While the girls are giving first aid to the man, and the mother is crying and crooning over her child, it may be well for the sake of those who have not followed our Motor Girls in their previous adventures to state a little more fully just who they were and what they had been doing up to the time this story opens.
Cora Kimball and her brother Jack – the same Jack who had been brought in so handily in their encounter with the impudent young man – were the children of a wealthy widow living in Chelton, a New England village located not very far from the New York line. They were both healthy, normal, wideawake young people, and took vast delight in motoring. Either in a motor car or a motor boat they were equally happy and equally at home; and Cora was quite as expert in managing them as her brother.
Cora’s special chums were Belle and Bess Robinson, twin daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Perry Robinson, the former a well-to-do railroad man, living in the same town as the Kimballs. Belle, as we have seen, was tall and slender – “svelte” was the way she liked to put it. And Bess – well, Bess was “plump,” but a very pretty and charming girl nevertheless. Of the three girls, Cora was the natural leader, and the trio were almost inseparable.
Jack Kimball, Cora’s brother, was a manly, likable chap and devotedly attached to his sister, although at times he liked to “lord it” over her with truly masculine complacency. He was a student at Exmouth College, and his most intimate friend was Walter Pennington, who spent most of his vacations and whatever other spare time he had at the Kimball home. Perhaps Jack’s charming sister was the special magnet that drew Walter there so often – But there, it isn’t fair to delve too curiously into matters of that kind.
Paul Hastings, who had a position in an automobile concern, was a close friend of Jack and Walter, and the girls too liked him very much.
The love of motoring that all six, boys and girls alike, shared in common had led to many trips to various parts of the country, in the course of which they had met with many surprising and sometimes thrilling adventures. Both Cora and the Robinson twins had cars of their own, but as Cora seemed to take the lead in everything, most of the tours were taken in her car.
Their trips took them at one time or another to almost every section of the interior and the coast. At Lookout Beach, through New England, on Cedar Lake, at Crystal Bay, on the coast, even as far as the West Indies, all that happened to them on these expeditions, and it was much, is told in the previous volumes of the series.
In the volume immediately preceding this one, called “The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise,” a number of very strange happenings are recorded. To begin with, Cora’s car was stolen and she was almost inconsolable, for though her mother would have bought her one to replace it, she had an affectionate attachment for the old one that had so many happy memories connected with it. They found no real track of the thieves until, when they were spending the early part of the summer at Camp Surprise, they came across a gang of ticket counterfeiters, who had set up their plant in an underground passage leading from the very house where the girls were staying.
And now, as the reader has seen, the girls were on their way to spend the late summer in the heart of the Adirondacks. And right at the outset they had been witnesses of what was so nearly a tragedy that for the moment their hearts had stood still.
All alert, now that their terror for the child’s safety was dispelled, the girls hurried over to the driver, who still lay stretched out in the road. As they approached he opened his eyes and looked about him in a dazed way.
“The child,” he murmured, as he brushed his hand over his forehead. “Is it safe?”
“It’s all right,” replied Cora cheerily, immensely relieved to find that the driver was not dead, as she had feared. “But don’t try to talk now until you feel a little stronger.”
She knelt down and took his head upon her knee.
“Run to the house, girls, and get some water,” she commanded, taking charge of things, as she always did in a crisis.
The farmer’s wife, who had now got back some of her self-control, led the way into the house, and in a moment the girls were back with plenty of cool water and some linen. Cora washed a cut in the man’s head, deftly tied a bandage around it, and put some water to his lips, which he drank eagerly.
The cut was not a serious one, and the farmer, who had joined the group, announced after a brief examination that no bones seemed to be broken. He was urgent that the man should be taken into the house and a doctor sent for, but the injured man, who was getting stronger by the minute and seemed to have a very determined will of his own, vetoed this emphatically.
“There’s nothing the matter with me except for the shock and a few bruises,” he declared. “I’ll be as well as ever as soon as this dizziness passes away.”
He proved himself a true prophet, for at the end of ten minutes he was on his feet and looking ruefully at his car.
“Pretty much of a wreck, I imagine,” he remarked with a twisted smile, as he walked around it and took stock of the damage.
The girls joined in the inspection, and as they knew as much about automobiles as the man himself, they satisfied themselves that he had not exaggerated much in describing it as a “wreck.” The wheels and part of the body were intact, but the machinery was badly knocked out of gear. It was clear that it would not be able to go under its own power.
“There’s a garage a few miles further on,” the stranger remarked. “I’ll have to leave word there and have them come back to get it.”
“No need of doing that,” volunteered Cora. “We’re going in that direction, and we’ll be glad to tow you there.”
The man hesitated.
“It’s very good of you,” he replied, “but I’m afraid I’ve taxed your kindness too far already.”
“It won’t be any trouble at all,” returned Cora cordially. “You can sit in the front seat with me, and as my car is a powerful one we’ll be able to tow yours easily.”
He demurred a little longer, but finally accepted the offer with hearty thanks. The farmer brought out a rope, and with the aid of a couple of farm hands got the wrecked machine out in the road. Then the two cars were connected and the girls started off, with a parting wave of the hand and a smile directed especially to the little toddler, who was held tightly in the mother’s arm.
“That child won’t be allowed to go out of the gate alone again in a hurry, I guess,” laughed Belle.
“It wasn’t the child’s fault,” remarked the stranger. “I was going altogether too fast. If I’d been moving at a moderate rate I could have stopped in plenty of time. Fact is, I was thinking of something else – none too pleasant thoughts they were either – and I didn’t realize just how fast I was going.”
“You were very lucky to get off as well as you did, Mr. – ” Cora hesitated inquiringly.
“Morley,” supplemented the stranger. “Bless my heart, here I am accepting all this service from you young ladies and forgetting to introduce myself. Samuel Morley is my name, and I live in the town of Saxton, about twenty miles from here. Yes, as you were saying, I was very lucky to get off as well as I did – a good deal luckier than I deserved. Though perhaps it would have been just as well if I had been killed after all.”
He brought out the last sentence so savagely that the girls were startled.
“You mustn’t mind what I say,” he said apologetically, as he noted the look on their faces. “I’m just a crabbed old stick anyway. If I hadn’t been that, I wouldn’t have so many painful memories now. Sometimes they come crowding in upon me until it seems as though I couldn’t stand them. But I wouldn’t want to say anything that would shadow the faces of young girls. There was a young girl once – ”
He caught himself up sharply.
“But here I am doing all the talking,” he said. “That’s a sign I’m getting old. Now suppose you girls turn the tables. Tell me all about yourselves and where you are going.”
The conversation became general then, and from that time on he carefully refrained from saying anything bearing on himself, although the girls, who scented a romance or a tragedy somewhere, would gladly have forborne their own talk in order to hear more of his story.
“There’s the garage over there,” he said, as they drew near the outskirts of a town, pointing to a low building on the right.
Cora drove her car close in and the keeper of the garage came out and unfastened the rope that bound the two machines.
“I can’t thank you young ladies enough,” Mr. Morley said gratefully, as he shook hands with them. “I only hope the time will come when I can repay the favor.”
“Are you feeling all right now?” asked Cora, as she got ready to throw in the clutch.
“Nothing worse than a headache. You’re a first-class doctor,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye.
Cora laughed.
“Don’t tell any one,” she admonished. “It might get me into trouble. You know, I haven’t a license to practise in this state.”
CHAPTER III
THE MISSING PURSE
“What queer things that man said about himself,” remarked Belle, as she settled back in her seat.
“I was wild to have him go on,” replied her sister. “I’m sure he’s got a romance or a mystery of some kind in his life.”
“Did you see how suddenly he checked himself when he started to talk about that girl?” asked Cora.
“Perhaps it was some girl whom he intended to marry,” said Bess, who had a strong vein of sentiment in her composition.
“Well, we’ll never get a chance to know,” observed Belle. “We’ve probably seen Mr. Samuel Morley for the first and last time.”
“I don’t know about that,” rejoined Cora. “I have a sort of feeling that we’ll run across him again.”
“Listen to the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,” mocked Belle.
“Sybilla, the reader of the mystic sphere, the gazer into the crystal globe!” gibed Bess.
“I’m no prophetess,” disclaimed Cora. “I just have a feeling that way. Perhaps I’ll have the laugh on you scoffers yet.”
“We’re willing to wait,” returned Belle. “Just now it’s the present more than the future that I’m worrying about. That Good Samaritan act of ours has taken up a good deal of time. And you know that we planned to stop in that department store when we get to Roxbury and buy some of the things we came away without in our hurry this morning. I’ve simply got to have that chiffon.”
“And I need a new box of powder,” put in Bess. “My old one is nearly empty.”
“Such victims of the vanity of this world,” sighed Cora. “But don’t worry, girls. I’ll throw in a little extra speed and you’ll hear the car fairly purr.”
“Not too fast,” cautioned Belle. “After what we saw to-day in the way of fast driving, I’m willing to go a little slower.”
“I’ll be careful,” promised Cora; “but all the same we can afford to go a good deal faster than we are moving now.”
She threw in more speed, and the gallant car responded at once with scarcely an added vibration. In a short time Roxbury was in sight, and turning into one of the main streets, they drew up before the doors of the leading store of the town.
They went at once to the veiling department, where Belle purchased her chiffon. That and the powder that Bess secured in the drug department completed all the buying that they had intended to do. But they were true daughters of Eve, and so many things met their eyes that they were sure they simply could not do without, that before they knew it they had bought quite extensively.
They were standing at one of the counters, waiting for their change, which seemed an unconscionable time in coming.
“Even Job would have lost patience if there had been department stores in his day,” remarked Belle.
“But there were department stores then,” replied Cora.
“What do you mean?” asked Bess.
“There must have been,” said Cora. “Don’t you remember where Job says: ‘All the days of my life will I wait till my change come’?”
The girls laughed, but the laugh quickly faded when Cora gave a startled exclamation:
“Oh, girls, I’ve lost my purse!”
“You don’t mean it!” cried Belle.
“Are you sure?” asked Bess.
“I had it in my hand just a minute ago,” replied Cora in much agitation. “I took that ten dollar bill out of it that they’re making change for now. I must have laid it down for a minute, and now it’s gone.”
There were a number of bolts of cloth on the counter near which the girls were standing, and they made a hurried search among them without result.
“And I had nearly a hundred dollars in it,” mourned Cora. “Will you please help me look for my purse?” she asked of the man behind the counter, who had been standing with his back toward them, busily packing pieces of cloth on the shelves.
He turned toward them, rather reluctantly the girls thought, and they were startled to find themselves looking into the eyes of the young man who had annoyed them while they were lunching at the roadside.
A flush suffused his face as the girls looked at him coldly.
“What can I do for you, ladies?” he asked, in an obsequious tone that was in strong contrast with the impudent one he had used a few hours before.
“I’ve lost my purse about here somewhere,” said Cora, “and as it had a considerable sum of money in it I am very anxious to have it found.”
He was profuse in his expressions of regret, and began with apparent eagerness to turn over all the goods on the counter, while the girls watched anxiously. But there was no sign of the purse to be seen.
Just then the manager of the store came along, an alert, keen-eyed man, and seeing the little commotion about the counter, asked courteously if he could be of any assistance.
He listened carefully to what Cora had to say.
“It’s singular,” he said. “There doesn’t seem from what you say to have been anybody standing close by within the last few minutes. Are you quite sure that you had the purse when you came to this counter?”
“Positive,” replied Cora. “I haven’t moved from here since I took the bill out of the purse to pay for the goods I bought.”
“Have you made a careful search, Higby?” asked the manager, fixing his sharp eyes upon the clerk as though he would read him through and through.
“Yes, sir,” replied Higby; “but I’ll go through the goods again to make sure.”
He tossed the bolts of cloth about vigorously, and after a moment gave an exclamation of triumph.
“Here it is!” he cried. “Is this your purse, miss?” he asked, holding the article out to Cora.
The latter pounced upon it with a little squeal of delight.
“Oh, yes, that’s it!” she exclaimed. “Thank you ever so much.”
“You would better look over the money to make sure it is all there,” suggested the manager.
Cora ran hastily over the roll of bills.
“It’s all right,” she announced in a tone of relief.
The manager expressed his gratification at its recovery, coupled with an expression of regret at the annoyance she had suffered, and the missing change having come by this time, the girls hurriedly gathered their purchases together and left the store.
“You lucky girl!” exclaimed Belle, as Cora started the car.
“Luckier than I deserve,” laughed Cora happily. “It was awfully careless of me to let the purse out of my hand for a second. It would have served me right if I had lost it.”
“Do you think you really lost it?” asked Belle significantly.
The girls looked at each other, and it was evident that the same thought was shared by all.
“Perhaps it seems mean to say it,” remarked Cora slowly, “but since you ask me, I must say that the whole thing looks queer. There was the way he kept his back to us when we were looking for it on our own account. But I don’t lay so much weight on that, because he might have recognized us and felt a little sheepish after the way we took him down this afternoon. But why couldn’t he have found it before the manager came along, and why did he find it so promptly when the manager was standing there watching him? Of course, it might have been mixed up in the folds of the cloth the first time, and dropped out when he went over the goods again the second time. I suppose anyway we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“He doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt from me,” said Bess in so emphatic a manner that the others, accustomed to her easy-going ways, looked at her in astonishment.
“You hard-hearted thing!” exclaimed her sister.
“What do you mean?” asked Cora.
“Listen, my children, and you shall hear,” began Bess in her best manner. “I kept my eye on that young gentleman – ”
