THE ACCIDENT
"Betty, is she dead?"
"Oh, I hope not," said Betty, white-faced and pitying, as she bent over
the little old woman. "That man ought to be hung! I'll loosen her collar.
And, Grace, see if you can find some water. Hurry, dear."
And while the girls are ministering to the poor little victim of the
accident, the opportunity will be taken to tell new readers something
about the Outdoor Girls and their activities and adventures in other
volumes of this series.
Betty Nelson, gay and fun-loving, possessed the natural gift of leadership
which had earned for her the title of "Little Captain." The girls adored
her and followed her unquestioningly wherever she led.
Grace Ford was a graceful, tall, pretty girl with a decided and insatiable
fondness for chocolate candy. At the outbreak of the war, or rather, at
the time of America's entry into the war, her brother Will had caused her
great unhappiness by his failure to enlist with the other boys of her
acquaintance. The mystery had been satisfactorily explained later,
however, and when this story opens, Will was on his way to make a splendid
soldier in America's army of democracy.
There was a bit of French blood in Mollie Billette, or "Billy," as the
girls sometimes called her. Bright black eyes which could, upon occasion,
snap fire and a rather unruly temper attested to this French ancestry.
The last one of the quartette was Amy Blackford, quiet and retiring, but
given to occasional outbursts which never failed to surprise and delight
the girls. The mystery which at one time had surrounded her origin had
been cleared up some years before by the finding of Henry Blackford, her
long-lost brother.
How the girls formed a camping and tramp club and the fun they had on
their interesting and adventurous tour, has been told in the first volume
of the series, entitled "The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale."
After this the girls had many adventures, first at Rainbow Lake, to which
they went on another tour, this time in an automobile. From there they
went to a winter camp where they had many varied and exciting experiences
on skates and iceboats. Then followed a glorious trip to Florida, where
the girls braved many dangers and took thrilling trips into the wilds of
the interior.
Their next adventure took them to Ocean View and centered about a
mysterious box they found in the sand.
Then followed that glorious trip to Pine Island. An aunt of Mollie
Billette had turned her bungalow over to the Outdoor Girls for the summer.
During their strenuous adventures the girls had made many friends among
the boys and young men of Deepdale, and four of these had asked and been
granted permission by the girls to accompany them to Pine Island and pitch
their camp in the woods near by.
One of the young men was Allen Washburn, a rising young lawyer and a great
admirer of Betty. Another was Will Ford, Grace's brother, and a third was
his high school chum, Frank Haley. The fourth, Roy Anderson, had been
drawn into the circle chiefly through his admiration for Grace.
During that eventful summer on Pine Island the young people had
accidentally discovered a gypsy cave, concealed by underbrush, and had
succeeded not only in rounding up the band of gypsies but in recovering
several valuable articles that had been stolen from the girls.
Their last adventure, related in the volume directly preceding this one,
and entitled "Outdoor Girls in Army Service," found the girls and boys
again at Pine Island, but under very much altered conditions. America had
entered the great World War and all the boys but Will Ford had
volunteered. Later, the boys were called to Camp Liberty, some distance
from Deepdale, and the girls conceived the plan of opening a Hostess House
for the benefit of the relatives and friends of the boys. The plan worked
out very satisfactorily.
While still at Pine Island the girls and boys had come upon a suspicious
looking man in the woods. Upon finding himself discovered the man had made
his escape, but in his hurry had dropped a letter which the girls found to
their disgust was written in code. They decided that the man must have
been a German spy.
At Camp Liberty the girls succeeded in rounding up the spy, and found, to
their surprise, that Will Ford, who was in the Secret Service, had been
engaged all that time in tracking him to earth. Will, having accomplished
his mission, immediately enlisted.
Now, at the time this story opens, the girls were still at the Hostess
House and looking forward apprehensively to the time, now imminent, when
the boys would be ordered across the sea to fight for the country they
loved.
"I'll go with Grace," volunteered Amy, in answer to Betty's request for
water. "I don't suppose we can find any, but we'll try."
The two girls hurried off, leaving Mollie and Betty to loosen the woman's
collar and rub her cold hands.
"Betty, Betty, is she dead?" Mollie was crying for perhaps the hundredth
time, when the woman herself answered the question by opening her eyes and
looking vacantly about her.
"Who--are--you?" she queried faintly, struggling to rise.
"Oh, please don't try to get up just yet," Betty pleaded, looking very
sweet and charming in her solicitude. "I don't think you're strong
enough--"
But the woman seemed of a different mind, and made such a desperate effort
to raise herself that Betty had no alternative but to help her to her
feet.
The girls supported the unsteady little figure while the dim old eyes
roved questioningly about.
"I--got--hurt!" she gasped, and then quite suddenly fainted again.
"Oh, Betty!" moaned Mollie, her face white with pity. "She's hurt worse,
much worse, than we thought she was! Oh, what shall we do?"
"There's only one thing to do," replied Betty, trying to hide the tremor
in her voice. "We'll have to get her to the hospital, and in a hurry."
"But Grace and Amy!" gasped Mollie. "We can't go without them."
"We can at least get her into the car," Betty said, indicating the limp
little figure in the roadway. "You take her feet, Mollie, and I'll take
her head. We haven't spent all our lives outdoors for nothing."
Between them they succeeded in carrying their burden to the car and
settled her gently in the tonneau.
"Oh, if Grace and Amy would only come!" Mollie was crying distractedly
when the girls themselves burst through the underbrush, crying
despairingly that they had not been able to find water, that there was not
a house anywhere for miles around.
But Betty cut their lamentations short and hurried them into the car.
"But where do I come in?" gasped Grace, as Betty dropped into the back
seat beside the little old woman and took the poor unconscious head in her
arms.
"Oh, anywhere," answered Betty indifferently, her mind on one object only.
"On the floor or on the roof or anywhere, only hurry. Now, Mollie dear,
drive as you never drove before."
Mollie obediently threw in the clutch, and the heavy car shot forward,
throwing Grace to a seat on the floor where she fell with more haste than
dignity.
Nobody noticed her, however, and even a growing bump on her forehead
received scant attention. All were too intent upon the matter at hand.
At this spot the road was very narrow and on each side sloped down sharply
about ten or twelve feet to the level of the fields. It seemed almost an
impossibility to turn the car in that narrow space without precipitating
it down either one or the other of the steep banks.
After many fruitless attempts and barely escaped tragedies, however,
Mollie finally succeeded, and the car was sent flying down the white
stretch of road that led to Camp Liberty and the hospital.
"Oh, I hope we'll get there in time," Amy murmured over and over again,
and kept looking at the pathetic little victim. "Is she still breathing,
Betty? Are you sure?"
To this Betty always nodded in the affirmative, her little mouth grimly
set, her eyes fixed steadily ahead, as though she would draw their
destination nearer to them by the very force of her desire.
"I wonder," Mollie flung back at them from between clenched teeth, "what
that motorcyclist looked like. I'd like to meet him again--with a firing
squad."
"Why I saw him," came Grace's muffled voice from the floor of the car.
"So did I," added Amy.
"So you would recognize him again?" Mollie demanded eagerly, swerving the
car perilously near the edge of the road.
"Are you sure?" added Betty, taking her eyes from the far horizon and
regarding Grace intently.
Both girls nodded vigorously.
"His head was down, of course," Amy continued, "but I'd know his face in a
minute if I saw it again. Eyes close together, long nose--"
"And a little mustache," Grace finished eagerly. "The kind Percy Falconer
used to wear and we girls called an eyebrow on his lip."
"He must have been a thing of beauty," commented Mollie.
"He had the meanest kind of face," said Amy, with a little shudder. "The
kind you wouldn't like to meet on a dark night."
"I should have judged as much from your description," said Betty dryly.
"There's one good thing about him--we ought to be able to recognize him
easily."
"You talk as though you expected to meet him again," said Amy, looking at
her curiously.
"I do," answered Betty determinedly. "Some time we're going to find that
fellow and make him pay for what he's done. Think of it!" she added,
turning upon them suddenly while her eyes flashed fire. "To run down a
helpless old woman in the road and then not even stop to find out whether
you've killed her or not! We'll find him if we have to search the country
for fifty miles around!"