"My car! Some one taking my car!" repeated Cora Kimball. "Who is it,
Belle?" and she hurried to the window from which the tall, willowy
Robinson 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 as
Cora 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 then
made for the doorway, followed by the other girls.
And while they are thus on their way to intercept those who had taken
Cora's car I will devote a few minutes to acquainting my new readers
with the characters and incidents that go to make the previous volumes
of this series.
"The Motor Girls," was the title of the initial book. In that we find
Cora Kimball, the daughter of a wealthy widow, with her brother Jack,
living in "Cheerful Chelton," as it has been called, a village on the
Chelton river, in New England, not far from the New York boundary. Cora
and Jack each had an automobile, but most of the adventures took place
in 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 sufficiently
indicated to you their characters. Bess was plump, and Belle tall and
willowy, inclined to indolence which she imagined was graceful. Cora
Kimball was a leader, and where she went the Robinson twins generally
followed.
Jack Kimball, a student at Exmouth college, was almost as much a chum of
Cora's as were her girl friends, and the girls regarded Jack and his
chums, Walter Pennington and Paul Hastings, as their especial retainers
and vassals as the case demanded. Paul's sister Hazel, a sweet girl--if
you 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 to
Cora soon, and, as has been mentioned, Paul contemplated going camping
with the boys.
Soon after Cora secured her car the Robinson twins induced their father
to purchase one. The Motor Girls, as they had come to be known, went on
a tour, in the course of which many things happened. They had more
adventures at Lookout Beach, and also when they went through New
England.
In succession Cora and her friends paid a visit to Cedar Lake, down on
the coast, and next they spent a summer on Crystal Bay. They had there a
most delightful time, but perhaps not more so than that told of in the
book immediately preceding this one.
That volume is named "The Motor Girls on Waters Blue." I forgot to
mention that the girls, after having served their apprenticeship, as it
were, in automobiles, had acquired a fine, large motor boat. In this
they had many good times, though it was not this boat that figured
largely on the blue waters. When Mr. Robinson had been called to Porto
Rico on business he had taken his daughters and Cora with him.
How the steamer on which Mr. Robinson sailed to another island was
endangered, how the _Tartar_ was chartered by Cora and her chums to look
for the shipwrecked ones, and how Inez Ralcanto, the beautiful Spanish
girl, and her father, a political refugee, were aided--all this is set
down in the book preceding this present volume.
It was not until after many hardships and not a little anxiety that
matters were finally straightened out, and our friends came back to
Cheerful Chelton, which had never seemed so homelike or so desirable,
Cora said, as after the exciting episodes in what was practically a
foreign land.
A fall and winter of gaiety had brought spring and early summer, in
which delightful time of the year we now find our girl friends once
more.
"It is gone! My car is gone!" exclaimed Cora, as they ran out of the tea
room.
"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 way
they moved about--so lively!"
"Say!" cried Cora, imbued by a sudden idea. "Could they have been Jack
and 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 that
we were inside, may have gone off in it just for a joke."
"It's _possible_," assented Belle. "Anything is possible for Jack and
Wally. But if they came here they must have left their car near by. Turn
about 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 no
automobile in sight--not even Cora's.
"They must have speeded up," murmured Belle. "Oh! why weren't we
quicker?"
"It doesn't amount to anything if those young men were really Jack and
Walter," 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 look
alike to me."
"It can't have been Jack," declared Bess, "or his car would be somewhere
in sight. He wouldn't know we were in the tea room until he came up
close, 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 as
far 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," Cora
objected. "Let's take a look ourselves first."
The girls hurried down the road, all their drowsiness gone now. They
were rather alarmed in spite of the cool way in which Cora took it.
"It's dreadfully warm walking," complained Bess. "I shall have to have
more 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'll
never give up!"
They were almost at the turn when the honking of an automobile horn
warned 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, the
girls saw that it was not Cora's.
"But it's Jack and Walter!" cried the former's sister. "Wait! Stop!" she
begged. "Jack--Wally--we're in trouble! Did you take our car?"
"Take your car?" repeated Jack, bringing his machine to a stop with a
screeching of brakes. "What's the joke?"
"It isn't a joke at all!" declared Belle. "I saw two young men making
off 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 informed
him.
"Which way did they go?" asked Walter Pennington.
"Down this way," Belle said, explaining what she had seen, and how they
had come along the road thinking to meet the perpetrators of the joke.
"Come on, Wally!" cried Jack. "We'll get after those fellows. It may
have 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 a
regular organized gang. Go on back to your tea and cakes, girls. We'll
round 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 car
in the dust, Jack, by the tire-marks. There's a big patch, where it was
vulcanized. It's on the right forward wheel, and it makes a mark like a
big Z. Look for it."
"I will, Sis. But there isn't much chance. Too many cars pass along this
road to let the dust-marks of any particular one stay in sight long. But
we'll do the best we can."
Jack backed and turned his car around, and was soon off down the road in
a clatter of exhausts, while the three girls went back to Ye Olde
Spinning 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 in
taking 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 may
be----"
"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. "And
the sooner we find out the better, in order to get the police after the
thieves."
Wearily they trudged back to the tea room, which they had left so
suddenly.
"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 horn
warned them of the approach of some one. Eagerly they looked out to see
Jack and Walter returning.
"We lost the trail!" Jack called. "I saw the tire marks, Cora, for a
little way, then they disappeared. We'll have to notify the police. Your
car's stolen all right."
"Oh, Jack!"
"Might as well realize it first as last, Sis! Where's a telephone?" he
asked the waitress.