CHAPTER II--THE LOST TRAIL
"My car! Some one taking my car!" repeated Cora Kimball. "Who is it,Belle?" and she hurried to the window from which the tall, willowyRobinson twin was gazing toward the spot where the auto had been left.
"Two young men. I saw them get in, and--there they go! Out into the road!We must stop them!"
Belle turned to make her exit, but her dress caught on a chair, and asCora and Bess were behind her, they, too, were delayed.
"Oh, hurry!" begged Cora.
"I can't tear my dress," retorted Belle.
With a pull she loosed it from a splinter of the wicker chair, and thenmade for the doorway, followed by the other girls.
And while they are thus on their way to intercept those who had takenCora's car I will devote a few minutes to acquainting my new readerswith the characters and incidents that go to make the previous volumesof this series.
"The Motor Girls," was the title of the initial book. In that we findCora Kimball, the daughter of a wealthy widow, with her brother Jack,living in "Cheerful Chelton," as it has been called, a village on theChelton river, in New England, not far from the New York boundary. Coraand Jack each had an automobile, but most of the adventures took placein or about Cora's car, in which she and her two most intimate chums,the Robinson twins--Bess and Belle--went for many a ride.
The Robinson girls were the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Perry Robinson,the former a rich railroad man, and I think I have already sufficientlyindicated to you their characters. Bess was plump, and Belle tall andwillowy, inclined to indolence which she imagined was graceful. CoraKimball was a leader, and where she went the Robinson twins generallyfollowed.
Jack Kimball, a student at Exmouth college, was almost as much a chum ofCora's as were her girl friends, and the girls regarded Jack and hischums, Walter Pennington and Paul Hastings, as their especial retainersand vassals as the case demanded. Paul's sister Hazel, a sweet girl--ifyou know what I mean--had been quite friendly with Cora and her chums,until her removal to another city. Hazel was expected for a visit toCora soon, and, as has been mentioned, Paul contemplated going campingwith the boys.
Soon after Cora secured her car the Robinson twins induced their fatherto purchase one. The Motor Girls, as they had come to be known, went ona tour, in the course of which many things happened. They had moreadventures at Lookout Beach, and also when they went through NewEngland.
In succession Cora and her friends paid a visit to Cedar Lake, down onthe coast, and next they spent a summer on Crystal Bay. They had there amost delightful time, but perhaps not more so than that told of in thebook immediately preceding this one.
That volume is named "The Motor Girls on Waters Blue." I forgot tomention that the girls, after having served their apprenticeship, as itwere, in automobiles, had acquired a fine, large motor boat. In thisthey had many good times, though it was not this boat that figuredlargely on the blue waters. When Mr. Robinson had been called to PortoRico on business he had taken his daughters and Cora with him.
How the steamer on which Mr. Robinson sailed to another island wasendangered, how the _Tartar_ was chartered by Cora and her chums to lookfor the shipwrecked ones, and how Inez Ralcanto, the beautiful Spanishgirl, and her father, a political refugee, were aided--all this is setdown in the book preceding this present volume.
It was not until after many hardships and not a little anxiety thatmatters were finally straightened out, and our friends came back toCheerful Chelton, which had never seemed so homelike or so desirable,Cora said, as after the exciting episodes in what was practically aforeign land.
A fall and winter of gaiety had brought spring and early summer, inwhich delightful time of the year we now find our girl friends oncemore.
"It is gone! My car is gone!" exclaimed Cora, as they ran out of the tearoom.
"Of course it is!" declared Belle. "Didn't I see them take it!"
"Two young men, you say?" asked her sister.
"Yes. I didn't see their faces, but I knew they were young by the waythey moved about--so lively!"
"Say!" cried Cora, imbued by a sudden idea. "Could they have been Jackand Walter?"
"Your brother?" asked Bess.
"Yes. I heard him say he was coming over in this direction in his car.He and Walter might have driven up, and, seeing my car and guessing thatwe were inside, may have gone off in it just for a joke."
"It's _possible_," assented Belle. "Anything is possible for Jack andWally. But if they came here they must have left their car near by. Turnabout is fair play--let's annex theirs."
"Let's find it first," said Cora.
They hurried out to the road. A quick look up and down showed noautomobile in sight--not even Cora's.
"They must have speeded up," murmured Belle. "Oh! why weren't wequicker?"
"It doesn't amount to anything if those young men were really Jack andWalter," Cora said. "But we can't be sure of that; can we, Belle?"
"No, I can't. I only had a glimpse of their backs, and all backs lookalike to me."
"It can't have been Jack," declared Bess, "or his car would be somewherein sight. He wouldn't know we were in the tea room until he came upclose, and then there wouldn't have been time to run his car back."
"You can't tell what they would do," said Cora. "Come on, we'll walk asfar as the turn in the road, and see what's down there."
"Hadn't you better report your loss to the proprietor of the tea room?"suggested Belle. "He might send a man out to look for the machine."
"I don't want to make too much fuss if it was Jack and Walter," Coraobjected. "Let's take a look ourselves first."
The girls hurried down the road, all their drowsiness gone now. Theywere rather alarmed in spite of the cool way in which Cora took it.
"It's dreadfully warm walking," complained Bess. "I shall have to havemore cream after this is over."
"You can go back and wait for us," suggested Cora, "if you're too----"
"Don't dare say I'm too stout to keep on the trail!" cried Bess. "I'llnever give up!"
They were almost at the turn when the honking of an automobile hornwarned them of the approach of a car.
"There they come back!" cried Belle, in relieved tones.
But a moment later, as a machine swung into view around the curve, thegirls saw that it was not Cora's.
"But it's Jack and Walter!" cried the former's sister. "Wait! Stop!" shebegged. "Jack--Wally--we're in trouble! Did you take our car?"
"Take your car?" repeated Jack, bringing his machine to a stop with ascreeching of brakes. "What's the joke?"
"It isn't a joke at all!" declared Belle. "I saw two young men makingoff with Cora's car. At first we thought it might be you and Wally."
"Not guilty!" affirmed the latter, holding up a protesting hand.
"Where did all this happen?" Jack wanted to know.
"At the Spinning Wheel tea room. We stopped there," his sister informedhim.
"Which way did they go?" asked Walter Pennington.
"Down this way," Belle said, explaining what she had seen, and how theyhad come along the road thinking to meet the perpetrators of the joke.
"Come on, Wally!" cried Jack. "We'll get after those fellows. It mayhave been a joke, and, again, it may not. No use taking any chances.There have been several cars stolen around here lately. Maybe there's aregular organized gang. Go on back to your tea and cakes, girls. We'llround up the villains. Ha! Ha!" and he struck a theatrical attitude.
"We'll wait at the tea room for you," Cora said. "You can trace my carin the dust, Jack, by the tire-marks. There's a big patch, where it wasvulcanized. It's on the right forward wheel, and it makes a mark like abig Z. Look for it."
"I will, Sis. But there isn't much chance. Too many cars pass along thisroad to let the dust-marks of any particular one stay in sight long. Butwe'll do the best we can."
Jack backed and turned his car around, and was soon off down the road ina clatter of exhausts, while the three girls went back to Ye Old
eSpinning Wheel.
"Who do you suppose they could be--those two fellows?" asked Bess.
"Haven't the least idea," her sister assured her.
"It couldn't have been Paul Hastings, could it?"
"Of course not!" declared Cora. "Paul isn't given to playing such jokes.Besides, he's in the auto business you know, and he doesn't believe intaking chances with the cars of others. It may be a joke, as Jack says,and some of our numerous friends may have tried to scare us, or it maybe----"
"Don't say your lovely car is really _stolen_!" interrupted Bess,impulsively.
"Well, I'd have to say it if it were," declared the practical Cora. "Andthe sooner we find out the better, in order to get the police after thethieves."
Wearily they trudged back to the tea room, which they had left sosuddenly.
"Let's have some more ice cream while we're waiting," suggested Bess.
They had nearly finished their second plates when the honking of a hornwarned them of the approach of some one. Eagerly they looked out to seeJack and Walter returning.
"We lost the trail!" Jack called. "I saw the tire marks, Cora, for alittle way, then they disappeared. We'll have to notify the police. Yourcar's stolen all right."
"Oh, Jack!"
"Might as well realize it first as last, Sis! Where's a telephone?" heasked the waitress.
The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise; Or, The Cave in the Mountains Page 2