The Motor Girls in the Mountains: or, The Gypsy Girl's Secret

CHAPTER I
BREAKING THE SPEED LIMIT

“Say, girls, isn’t this the best thing ever?”

Cora Kimball, the girl whose hand was on the wheel of the motor car as it sped swiftly along a sun-flecked country road, put the words in the form of a question, but they were really an exclamation drawn from her by sheer delight in living. She was gloriously indifferent as to an answer, but the answer came just the same from the two pretty girls who occupied the seat behind her.

“It’s perfectly grand!” cried Belle Robinson, the more slender of the two, as she snuggled down still more luxuriously in the soft cushions of the automobile.

“It seems to me yet as though it must be a dream,” declared her twin sister Bess, who was considerably larger than either of her companions. “Pinch me, somebody, so that I can be sure it’s real.”

Cora reached over mischievously and took her at her word.

Bess drew back with a little squeal.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed. “You took a piece out that time!”

“Well, what if I did?” laughed Cora. “You can spare a little without missing it.”

“You ought to be thankful to Cora for helping you to reduce,” put in her sister slyly.

Bess flushed a trifle, for her “plumpness” – she abominated the word “stout” and avoided it as if it were the plague – was rather a tender point with her.

“I don’t care for such drastic methods,” she retorted. “I’d rather take the flesh off more gradually. Besides,” she added with a show of pride, “I’m going down quite fast enough as it is. I’m two pounds lighter than I was last week.”

“Swell chance you have of getting thinner when you will keep nibbling at chocolate creams,” remarked her sister unbelievingly. “You might hand some over, you stingy thing, instead of keeping them all to yourself.”

“No such thing!” denied Bess, producing a small box. “They’re lemon drops, and everybody knows they don’t make you” – she was going to say “fat,” but checked herself just in time to substitute “plump.”

“Slip one into my mouth, Belle,” commanded Cora. “I don’t dare to take my hand from the wheel.”

“I noticed that you took it away fast enough when you wanted to pinch me,” remarked Bess.

“That was different,” returned Cora. “You asked me to, and I’d do a good deal to oblige a friend.”

“Heaven save me from my friends,” sighed Bess, and then they all laughed.

For laughter came easy on a day like this. The sun of early August was tempered by a light breeze that removed any suspicion of sultriness. The road was a good one, and Cora’s car under her expert guidance glided along with scarcely a jar. Great trees on either side provided a grateful shade. Squirrels scolded noisily in the branches, and here and there a chipmunk slipped like a shadow along the fences and the hum of the locusts filled the air with a dreamy harmony. A bobolink flitted across the road, dropping a whole sheaf of silver notes from his joyous throat. It was a day on which it was good to be alive.

“To think that we’re really on our way to the Adirondacks,” murmured Belle delightedly. “I’ve wanted to go there ever since I wore pigtails.”

“And to Camp Kill Kare,” said Bess. “The very name seems to promise all kinds of fun.”

“Doesn’t it?” agreed Cora. “And how much more fun it is to go this way than in stuffy old railway cars.”

“Are you sure we can get there by to-morrow night?” asked Belle.

“We can if nothing happens to the car,” answered Cora. “It’s in splendid shape now, and we’re fairly eating up the miles. Of course, if it rains and the roads get muddy it may take us a little longer. But after all the rain we had last week, I guess we can be sure of good weather. There isn’t a cloud in the sky now.”

“Did you finally decide to stay at your Aunt Margaret’s house to-night?” asked Bess.

“Yes,” replied Cora. “Isn’t it lucky that her home is just about half-way on our trip? If it hadn’t been for that, we’d have had to bring a chaperon along with us, and that would have been a nuisance. I suppose they are a necessary evil, but I’m awfully glad when we get a chance to do without one.”

“I suppose your Aunt Betty will be at Kill Kare when we get there,” remarked Belle.

“She’s already there,” answered Cora. “We got a letter from her yesterday, saying that everything was all ready for us and that she was just dying to see us. And with Aunt Betty in mind, I’ll take back what I said about chaperons. She’s a perfect dear, and I’m sure you girls will fall dead in love with her.”

“I’ve no doubt we shall,” answered Bess. “I’m prepared to love her just from your description. But say, girls,” she continued, glancing at her wrist watch, “do you know that it’s after twelve o’clock? Don’t you think we’d better be looking about for some place to stop to get lunch?”

“Hear that girl talk!” mocked Cora. “And she’s the one that’s always talking about reducing!”

“Oh, that this too, too solid flesh might melt,” quoted Belle.

“If the truth were known, I’ll wager I don’t eat as much as either of you two,” retorted Bess. “I had only a cup of coffee and two rolls this morning.”

“You had more than two rolls,” declared Belle, “I counted them and there were at least ten.”

“What do you mean, Belle Robinson?” asked Bess, turning to her sister in bewilderment.

“Rolls on the floor, I mean,” explained Belle, “when you were going through your reducing exercises.”

Bess turned her eyes to heaven in mute appeal.

“My own sister giving me away!” she moaned. “Well, our relatives are wished on us, but thank goodness I can choose my friends.”

“Stop your scrapping, girls,” interposed Cora, “and listen to me. There isn’t any hotel in sight, and even if there were, who wants to go indoors on a day like this? Mary put up a splendid lunch before we started. What’s the matter with dining al fresco?”

“Listen to the girl!” exclaimed Belle. “What does she mean by that?”

“Sounds to me like a sleight of hand performer,” murmured Bess.

“You’re thinking of ‘presto change,’” laughed Cora. “No, my benighted sisters. To put the thing in terms that your limited intelligence can grasp, I meant that we would eat in the open air.”

“Good!” exclaimed Belle.

“Right here in the car?” asked Bess.

“Why, we could,” answered Cora; “but don’t you think it would be better yet to find some nice little place by the side of the road? I’m a little cramped from sitting so long, and I suppose you are too. It will do us good to have a change.”

“Let’s choose some place where there’s a brook or a spring,” suggested Bess. “I’m dreadfully thirsty.”

“Been eating too many lemon drops,” said Belle.

“No more than you,” retorted Bess.

“No. But, gracious, that’s too many,” sighed her sister. “Less candy and more sandwiches for me when we are in the open air like this! Come, where’s that brook?”

“I’ve no doubt we can find such a place,” observed Cora, as she put a little extra speed in the car. “You girls keep your eyes open and tell me when to stop. I’ve got all I can do to watch the road and save some dog or chicken from untimely death.”

Not many minutes had elapsed before Belle reached over and touched Cora’s arm.

“The very spot!” she exclaimed. “There’s a brook and some trees that were just intended for a picnic party.”

Cora guided the car to the side of the road. The girls got out and stretched their cramped limbs with a sigh of relief. The lunch basket was taken from beneath the seat and carried to a cool and shady spot beneath a clump of great trees that stood a few feet away from the road. From a brook that rippled over the stones with a musical murmur, they brought a supply of water. A robe from the car was spread out on the grass, and napkins from the basket served as miniature tablecloths.

Then Mary’s offerings were brought to light, and amply maintained that person’s reputation for culinary skill. Lettuce sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, fried chicken legs, lemon tarts and fruit followed each other in rapid succession. Then, too, there was a thermos bottle filled with hot, fragrant coffee.

Their morning in the open air had sharpened the appetites of the girls, and they ate with a zest that would have made a dyspeptic turn green with envy. Bess, to be sure, tried feebly to bear in mind her rules for dieting, but the temptation was too great, and for that once anyway her good resolutions went by the board.

“I could die happy now,” she murmured, between bites of a lemon tart.

“You will die anyway if you eat much more,” said her sister severely. “Bess Robinson, I’m ashamed of you.”

“You’ll have to take twenty rolls to-morrow instead of ten, to make up for this,” laughed Cora.

“To-morrow’s a new day,” replied Bess mutinously. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

“She’s a hopeless case, I’m afraid,” sighed Belle. “But come along now, girls, and gather up these things. We want to get to the house of Cora’s aunt before it gets dark.”

“Behold a stranger cometh,” remarked Cora, as a horse and buggy came in sight, with a young man holding the reins.

The vehicle approached rapidly, and the eyes of the driver lighted up as he caught sight of the three girls. Instead of driving by, he reined up at the roadside and jumping from the buggy made his way toward the little party.

He was of medium height, flashily dressed, and had a weak, dissipated-looking face. The girls had risen to their feet and drawn a little closer together as he approached.

He took off his hat and bowed, with a smile that he tried to make ingratiating.

“I see I’m in luck,” he remarked. “Just in time to have a bite of lunch, if there’s any left.”

Cora, to whom the other girls looked for leadership, froze him with a glance.

“If you’re hungry, you can probably get something to eat at the next town,” she said. “We haven’t anything for tramps.”

The man flushed uncomfortably, and his impudent assurance went down several degrees beneath her stare.

“What’s the use of being so stiff?” he expostulated. “I’m only trying to be friendly.”

“That’s just what we object to,” replied Cora. “We don’t want your friendship. My brother will be along shortly, and perhaps he will appreciate it more than we do.”

The young man cast a hurried glance up and down the road. It was evident that, however strong his craving for feminine society, he had no desire to meet the brother.

“Oh, well,” he muttered, as he made his way toward the buggy, “you needn’t be so quick to take offence. There are plenty of girls who would be glad of my company.”

And with this, that was meant to be a Parthian shot, but that only provoked a nervous desire to laugh on the part of the girls, he gathered up the reins and drove off.

They saw him go with immense relief, for there was no other man in sight, and his impudence had alarmed as well as offended them.

“Well, of all the nerve!” ejaculated Belle.

“You certainly can freeze when you want to, Cora,” laughed Bess.

“How lucky it was that you thought of Jack,” said Belle. “Did you see the frightened look that came into his eyes?”

“That sort of man always is a coward,” replied Cora. “Perhaps he won’t be so free and easy when he meets girls alone again. But let’s get busy now and hustle these things back into the car.”

They soon had the thermos bottle and the depleted lunch basket tucked snugly away. The twins settled down in the rear seat, Cora threw in the clutch, and the car started.

They had gone perhaps a mile, when they descried a car coming at a rapid rate from the opposite direction.

“That man seems to be trying to break the speed limit,” remarked Cora, as she drove her own car close to the right-hand side of the road so as to give plenty of room.

“Like Jehu, the son of Nimshi, he driveth furiously,” observed Belle.

Just then the gate of a near-by farmhouse was pushed open, and a little child about three years old toddled out into the road, right in the path of the onrushing car.

A shriek went up from the girls.

“Oh, girls,” screamed Bess, rising from her seat, “that child will be killed!”

CHAPTER II
QUICK THINKING

For one tense moment it seemed as though nothing could avert a terrible tragedy.

A woman burst out of the house and ran screaming toward her child. But it was clearly impossible for her to reach the little one in time to save it.

The child, startled by the screams, stood helplessly right in the path of the Juggernaut that seemed doomed to crush it.

The driver of the car had seen the danger, and he instantly threw out the clutch and put on the brakes. But he was too near to stop in time.

There was only one thing to do, and, like a gallant man, he did it. He whirled the wheel around, and the car, its speed diminished but still considerable, dashed into a tree by the side of the road. The driver, an elderly man, was thrown out and lay stunned and bleeding.

The mother rushed to the little one and gathered it up into her arms with sobs and exclamations.

The girls, who had been unable to move and had sat paralyzed with horror, breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Thank God, the baby’s saved!” cried Bess.

“Yes,” exclaimed Cora, “but the man may be killed! Let’s see what we can do to help him.”

The three girls jumped from the car and rushed over to the injured man.

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.”