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

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 – ”

“The Gorgon stare,” murmured her sister.

“When he was turning those bolts of cloth the second time,” went on Bess, disdaining to dignify the interruption by noticing it, “and while he was fumbling them with one hand, I saw him bring up the purse from beneath the counter with the other hand and slip it under the cloth. Then, before I could say anything, he called out that he had found it. I could have shaken you when you thanked him so sweetly, Cora Kimball.”

The girls looked at each other aghast.

“Did you ever?” gasped Belle.

“He ought to be exposed!” exclaimed Cora indignantly.

“I suppose he ought,” agreed Bess placidly. “But after all, the proof wouldn’t be strong enough. It would be simply my word against his, and he’d swear black and blue that I was mistaken. We’d only get mixed up in an ugly mess, and nothing would come of it after all. I fancy that that young man will get to the end of his rope soon enough without our having anything to do with it. Thank your lucky stars, Cora, that you’ve got your money back, and let it go at that.”

“To think of Bess playing sleuth and tracking crime to its lair!” cried Belle. “I didn’t think she had it in her.”

“Oh, I’m some little bright-eyes, if you ask me,” remarked Bess complacently, as she reached out for the last of the lemon drops.

“We’ll have to work this up into amateur theatricals when the boys join us,” laughed Cora.

“Yes,” agreed Belle, “we’ll stage a one-act play and call it: ‘The Greed of Gold; or, Bess Robinson, the Girl Detective.’”

CHAPTER IV
THE STERNER SEX

“Talking of the boys – ” began Bess.

“Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” drawled her sister.

Bess flushed.

“You think of them just as much as I do, Belle Robinson, and perhaps more!” she countered. “But what I was going to say when I was so rudely interrupted was to wonder when they were ever going to catch up with us.”

“Jack said they’d surely overtake us before night,” replied Cora. “Walter and he were all ready, but Paul had had some things to wind up for his firm before he started in on his vacation. He had telegraphed, though, that he would be in Chelton before noon, and Jack said he’d show us just how fast that car of his could travel. He’s awfully proud of that car, but between us, girls, I don’t think he has anything on this car of mine in the matter of speed,” and she patted the wheel affectionately.

“Let’s hope they don’t get arrested for speeding,” said Belle.

“Or run over any babies,” put in Bess, with a lively recollection of the thrilling episode of the afternoon.

“I guess there’s no danger of that,” said Cora. “Jack’s keen on speed, but he’s a careful driver for all that. I tell you what we’ll do, girls. You keep a sharp lookout in the rear, for they may come into sight at any minute now, and the minute you see them coming you let me know. Then I’ll let out a little and we’ll try to tease them by keeping just far enough ahead of them to drive them crazy.”

“That’ll be dandy!” said Belle eagerly. “It’ll do them good to take some of the conceit out of them. I suppose they think we’ve been pining to have them with us.”

“Well, haven’t you?” asked Bess mischievously.

“No, I haven’t,” declared Belle, but in a tone that somehow failed to carry conviction.

“That looks like their car now!” cried Bess excitedly, as she caught a glimpse of an automobile that had just swung around a curve in the road about half a mile in the rear.

Belle craned her neck in the same direction.

“I guess it is,” she confirmed. “I can make out three people in it, but they’re too far away to see their faces.”

“We’ll let them get a little nearer so we can make sure,” said Cora, settling herself in her seat and taking a tighter grasp on the wheel, “and then we’ll let them take our dust and see how they like it.”

Belle knelt upon the seat to get a better view.

“Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see a man?” chanted Bess.

“Three of them,” replied Belle, “and they’re coming like all possessed. I’m almost sure it’s Jack that’s driving. There, one of them has taken out a handkerchief and is waving it!”

“It’s them,” pronounced Belle a moment later, forgetting her grammar in her excitement, and scrambling back into her seat again. “Now, Cora, it’s up to you to show them what the Motor Girls can do.”

“See that your hats are on tight, girls,” laughed Cora. “We’re going to stir up some little breeze.”

They had a long stretch of road in front of them at the time, with no house or vehicle in sight. The conditions could not have been better for a race, and Cora increased her speed gradually until the car was going like the wind.

The car behind had taken up the challenge at once and was also coming along at a tremendous rate. But Belle, venturing sundry peeks behind, announced gleefully that it was not gaining an inch.

“But that isn’t enough,” Cora flung back. “We want to make them actually drop farther behind. When we’ve once done that I’ll be satisfied. Then we’ll slow up and let them catch up to us.”

Two minutes later, Belle clapped her hands in delight.

“We’ve done it! We’ve done it!” she cried. “They’re a quarter of a mile farther back than they were when we started in.”

“Oh, how we’ll rub it into them!” gurgled Bess.

“Well, enough is as good as a feast,” laughed Cora, in great satisfaction. “Now we’ll give the lords of creation a chance to explain how they came to let mere girls run away from them.”

“It will take some explanation,” remarked Belle.

“They’re great little explainers, though,” said Bess. “They’d rather die than admit we had the faster car.”

Cora gradually slackened speed until the car, while still running swiftly, had reached a more reasonable rate. Belle’s glances behind told her that their pursuers were overtaking them by leaps and bounds.

A moment later there was a wild chorus of shouts, and Jack’s car drew up alongside. His two friends, Walter Pennington and Paul Hastings, were with him, both tall, athletic young fellows, with frank, pleasant faces.

The girls looked up with well simulated surprise, and pleasure that was not at all simulated.

“Why, it’s the boys!” they cried in chorus.

Both cars had by this time come to a full stop, and the masculine contingent, deserting theirs, came round to the girls’ car to greet them and to shake hands. Jack went further and gave his sister a hearty kiss, a proceeding which brought a look of envy to the faces of his companions.

“Where in the world have you slowpokes been?” asked Belle.

“Not much of a compliment, keeping away from us so long,” pouted Bess in a way to show a most bewitching dimple.

“I guess they’ve been glad enough to be rid of us for a while,” chimed in Cora.

Looks full of reproach and denial greeted this onslaught.

“That’s pretty good!” remarked Paul.

“Rich!” assented Walter.

“Just as if we hadn’t been breaking speed laws all day long in order to overtake you,” mourned Jack.

“What’s the use of living when you’re so misunderstood?” groaned Walter.

“After all the ice-creams and sodas we’ve blown in on these girls, too!” wailed Paul.

“Let’s find a hole somewhere and crawl away and die,” suggested Jack.

“It seems to me that the shoe’s on the other foot anyway,” said Walter, becoming accuser in his turn. “It’s you who didn’t want us. Who was it just now that was trying to run away from us?”

“Run away from you?” repeated Cora innocently. “What do you mean by that?”

“You know perfectly well, you little minx,” said her brother with mock sternness. “There we were, waving handkerchiefs at you and hustling the old machine along to beat the band. I know you saw us, for one of you was looking back.”

“I did see some one waving a handkerchief,” admitted Belle. “But it looked as though some ill-bred person was trying to flirt with us, and of course we didn’t pay the least attention.”

“No,” said Bess primly, “we’d die before we’d flirt.”

“If we’d wanted to flirt we had a perfectly good chance to-day while we were eating lunch,” said Cora. “He had a perfectly lovely necktie, too, a good deal brighter than any of yours.”

Jack threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.

“No use, fellows!” he exclaimed. “You can’t pin them down to anything.”

“But what did you have to wave your handkerchief for anyway to make us stop?” asked Cora demurely. “All you had to do was to put on more speed and catch up to us. That car of yours is so fast, you know. At least that’s what you’ve always said.”

The boys looked at each other a little disconcertedly.

“W-well,” stammered Jack, “the oil – the sparking wasn’t working just right – ”

“Tell the truth, Jack,” spoke up Walter, with a fine assumption of candor. “The real reason, girls, was that we were afraid of bumping into you – ”

“And we didn’t want to spill you all over the road,” finished Paul.

A groan went up from the girls.

“Oh, Ananias!” exclaimed Bess.

“Ananiases, you mean,” corrected her sister. “One’s just as bad as the others. They all hang together.”

“We’re like Ben Franklin when he signed the Declaration of Independence,” laughed Paul. “He said they’d all have to hang together or they’d hang separately.”

“I’ll admit that you have a good car, sis,” said Jack.

“And if that isn’t enough to take us back into favor, we’ll do anything else you say,” said Walter, wringing his hands in pretended agitation.

“We’ll put on sackcloth and ashes, jump through a hoop, roll over and play dead,” chimed in Paul. “No one has anything on us when it comes to humility.”

“It almost affects me to tears,” said Belle, pretending to reach for her handkerchief.

“They say cruel and unusual punishments are prohibited by the Constitution,” laughed Cora, “so we won’t deprive you of the refining influence of our society. Heaven knows you need it badly enough. We’ll let you trail along with us if you’ll promise to be very, very good.”

“We will,” promised Jack.

“There’s one thing yet that needs to be explained, fellows,” remarked Walter, as they climbed into their automobile. “What about that fellow with the iridescent necktie? I feel the demon of jealousy gnawing at my vitals.”

“Come, girls, ’fess up,” admonished Jack.

“He was just charming,” said Cora promptly.

“Perfectly lovely,” agreed Belle.

“Such soulful eyes!” exclaimed Bess languishingly.

“That I should ever have lived to hear this!” groaned Walter.

“I guess our cake is dough,” said Paul.

“Eftsoon and gadzooks!” cried Jack, striking an attitude, “lead me to him, and sooth it shall go hard with me if my trusty sword drink not the caitiff’s blood.”

“I guess you don’t need to go as far as that,” laughed Cora. “Leave him alone and the police will take care of him.”

“A-ha, a criminal!” cried Walter.

“That only makes him the more romantic,” declared Paul.

“It doesn’t help our case one bit,” said Jack. “Haven’t you heard of how women will deck a murderer’s cell with flowers?”

“I don’t think he’d have the nerve to be a murderer,” remarked Belle. “His specialty is stealing purses.”

And while the boys listened intently and threw in occasional indignant exclamations, the girls told of the young man’s attempt to scrape acquaintance, and of how later he had almost succeeded in getting possession of Cora’s purse.

“The cur!” growled Jack. “I wish I’d happened along when he was trying to get fresh!”

“You helped me out just the same, even if you weren’t there,” replied Cora. “You ought to have seen how he made tracks for his buggy when I said my brother would be along shortly.”

“You see,” said Jack, throwing out his chest, “how the terror of my name has preceded me.”

“It’s comforting anyway,” chimed in Walter. “It proves that we men are good for something.”

“And that the girls ought to have us with them all the time as trusty knights and vassals,” added Paul.

“You’re too ready to jump to conclusions,” rebuked Cora. “But now we’d better be hurrying along. It’s getting towards dark, and we’ll have all we can do to get to Aunt Margaret’s in time for dinner.”

“Dinner!” exclaimed Jack. “Where have I heard that word before? Lead me to it!”

“Do you think you can keep up with us in that car?” asked Cora wickedly. “If not, I’ll give you a tow.”

“Listen to her rubbing it in!” moaned Paul.

“It wasn’t enough to beat us,” complained Walter.

“I guess that fellow was right,” remarked Jack, “who said that Indians and women were alike. They both scalp the dead.”

CHAPTER V
A GROUP OF VAGABONDS

The two cars rolled along smartly, for the various happenings of the day had put the Motor Girls behind the schedule they had hoped to make. But despite their best efforts, dusk was settling down and the stars beginning to peep out when they drove up to the Kimball’s Aunt Margaret’s door.

She greeted them affectionately, and after they had washed off the dust of travel they were seated at the sumptuous meal she had had prepared in anticipation of their coming. After dinner was over, a number of young people in the neighborhood who had been invited to meet the tourists dropped in, and there was music and dancing. But Aunt Margaret’s watchfulness over her charges prevented this from being prolonged to an unseasonable hour, and by eleven o’clock all the tired travelers were sleeping the dreamless sleep of vigorous, healthy youth.

They needed a good sleep, for the longest lap of their journey still lay before them. And it was at an early hour the next morning that, after a hearty breakfast and cordial thanks and good-byes to their gracious hostess, they climbed into their cars and drove off.

“Off at last for the Adirondacks!” cried Jack gaily, as he drew in great draughts of the fresh morning air.

“And for Camp Kill Kare!” added Paul.

The girls had started off a little ahead of them, but the boys soon drew alongside and Jack signaled for Cora to stop.

“I would have speech with thee, fair maiden,” he remarked, as his sister obeyed.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Cora in pretended vexation. “Here are those rude boys interrupting us just when we were having the loveliest talk.”

“I guess you weren’t talking about anything very important,” replied Jack.

“No,” said Bess, dimpling, “we were talking about you boys.”

“And saying what a lovely thing it was to be all by ourselves for a little while,” put in Belle.

“Girls,” exhorted Walter solemnly, “remember that if there was an Ananias there was also a Sapphira.”

“We’re not so keen on having a stag party ourselves,” explained Jack, “and we thought it would be a dandy thing if one of you girls would come into our car and one of us fellows go to yours. That would make life one grand sweet song.”

“It all comes from what Cora said yesterday about the refining influence of feminine society,” said Walter. “I feel the need of that. In fact, I have a consuming desire to become refined. And I can’t be, as long as I associate with these two low-brows. So you’d better let me ride in your car.”

“And leave us in our native coarseness?” queried Paul. “Not on your life, old man! I need refinement just as much as you do.”

“Peace, brethren,” interposed Jack. “We’ll do this thing on the level. My claims to coarseness are just as strong as either of yours, but do you see me engaging in unseemly brawls? Nay and again nay. We’ll pull straws for it and may the coarsest man win.”

“I don’t know that we want any of you,” said Cora. “We don’t take incurable cases.”

“Don’t be too harsh, Cora,” said Belle. “You know they say there’s a spark of good in the very lowest.”

 
“While the lamp holds out to burn
The vilest sinner may return,”
 

hummed Bess.

There were no straws at hand, but some matches served as well, and Walter proved to be the lucky one. Belle agreed to go to Jack’s car, and Walter took her place alongside of Bess.

“Hurrah!” cried Walter, as he availed himself of his good fortune. “I’m saved. I’m doomed to refinement.”

“Doomed?” laughed Cora.

“Did I say doomed?” Walter answered. “How careless of me! Of course I meant destined to refinement.”

“I suppose you’ll be eating lotus blossoms and water lilies before long,” called out Jack, as the cars started up again.

“Watch me when lunch time comes,” grinned Walter. “But I don’t mind what you fellows say. I’ve got two refining influences while you have only one.”

“You need all you can get,” was Jack’s parting shot.

With merry chaff and banter, the time flew by as though on wings. They had lunch at a quaint little inn by the roadside, and Walter proved that the charms of feminine society had not yet begun to affect his appetite. But then, as he explained, the cure would be all the more effective if it were gradual, and he had plenty of time yet to climb to higher planes.

In the early afternoon they were turning a bend in the road, when Cora gave a sudden exclamation.

“Look!” she cried, pointing to a little glade at the right of the road. “There’s a camp of some kind. I do believe it’s gypsies!”

“Guessed it right the first time,” declared Walter.

“That’s what it is,” agreed Bess. “Oh, Cora, don’t you think we might stop a few minutes? I’d dearly love to have a look at them, if you think we can spare the time.”

“I’m not so very keen about it myself,” said Cora dubiously, for as those familiar with her previous adventures will remember, her experiences with these picturesque vagabonds had not been devoid of unpleasantness and danger. “But I’ll see what Jack says about it, and if he thinks we have time, I won’t mind stopping.”

She hailed Jack, and, after consulting his watch, the latter agreed that they could easily spare a half-hour or so for a visit to the gypsy camp.

They drew their cars to the side of the road and picked their way through the woods to the little dell where the gypsy encampment lay.

It was a typical camp of those strange nomads in whose blood runs the “call of the wild,” and who in their mode of life are almost as far removed from other human beings as though they lived upon another planet.

There were perhaps a dozen vans, from which came strange smells of cooking, amid which onion and garlic predominated. Unkempt children in tattered clothing played with dogs that seemed to be legion, while wrinkled and slatternly women sat on the steps of the vans or made their way through the grounds, whining their requests to visitors to cross their palms with silver and learn in return all that pertained to their present and future. Swarthy men, some of them with huge ear-rings and with sashes and turbans that reminded one of the pirates of tradition, lay sprawled out on the grass watching the throng with eyes that were sometimes indifferent and again sullen and smoldering.

There were just two elements that redeemed the camp from its general aspect of squalor and forlornness. One was the fine horses that were scattered here and there, for the gypsy has the keenest eye for a good animal of any trader on earth. The other was the presence of several gypsy girls of a wild barbaric type of beauty, whose flashing eyes and gaudy trinkets contrasted with the prevailing ugliness of their surroundings.

There were a large number of visitors present, due to the proximity of a large town a mile or so away, through which the automobiles had passed just before reaching the camp.

“Here’s the place to have your future told,” said Jack.

“Lucky they can’t tell our past,” remarked Walter. “What a give-away that would be for some of us.”

“I hope you haven’t any deep dark secret that would ‘chill the young blood, harrow up our souls’ if it were told,” laughed Cora.

“Walter just wants to make himself interesting,” gibed Bess.

“Well, whatever I may have been, I’m all right now that you girls have undertaken to refine me,” replied Walter.

“I’m realizing more and more what a tremendous contract it is,” Cora came back at him. “But look at that girl over there? Isn’t she a beauty?”

“She isn’t hard to look at, for a fact,” said Jack judicially, as his eyes fell on the gypsy girl his sister had indicated. “I think I’ll get her to tell my fortune. I want to know whether I’m born to be hanged or drowned.”

“It’s safe to say that you’re booked for a long life anyway,” remarked Paul. “Only the good die young.”

The girl had seen that the party were regarding her with interest, and she came over to them.

“Do you ladies want to have your fortunes told?” she asked with a winning smile that showed two rows of beautiful white teeth.

The girls hesitated.

“Go ahead, girls, and show the sporting spirit,” urged Jack. “You can get the promise of a perfectly good husband for fifty cents. And that’s cheap in these days of high prices.”

“It’s more than some of them are worth,” laughed Belle.

“I hope that isn’t a shot at us,” said Paul. “I’d be a bargain at a dollar.”

“She must have been thinking of that Higby fellow over at Roxbury,” said Bess. “Why, what’s the matter?” she asked, as the gypsy girl started violently and turned deadly pale.

Cora sprang to the girl’s side and put her arm around her to steady her.